The Wrong Women
by ilovenascar
Summary: Gibbs' romantic past. References to Kate & Gibbs, Shannon & Gibbs, but mostly Jen & Gibbs


Fic Title: The Wrong Women

Author: April

E-mail addy: NCIS

Pairing: Gibbs/Kate, Gibbs/Jen, references to Gibbs/Shannon

Date: January 7, 2007

Feedback: PLEASE! If you're going to criticize, please only be constructive!

Rating: G

Disclaimer: All characters belong to NCIS. I'm only borrowing for entertainment value.

Summary: Gibbs' romantic past

* * *

It was New Year's Eve and Donald Mallard was trying to get everything ready for the day and a half NCIS was allowed off when his best friend paid him a visit. "Jethro." He studied the other man's face and could almost instantly tell something was not right. "What's wrong?"

Jethro Gibbs shook his head, seeing Ducky was trying to get out of the morgue, go home. "Nothing."

"You didn't come all the way down here for nothing," Ducky said, his brogue deeper with worry for his friend. "Now what is it?"

"I haven't been sleeping well lately."

Ducky nodded. "Nightmares?"

Gibbs nodded in reply, never one to admit any weakness, except to his two best friends. "Not of Shannon and Kelly."

Ducky nodded, truly glad of that, remembering, during one of their late night chats, Gibbs telling him of waking up and thinking that Jenny was Shannon. "Then what?"

"Katie," Gibbs said, his tone a shade more quiet. He never discussed Kate with anyone, regardless of who it was. "Since Mexico…I keep seeing her dying over and over again. Ari shooting her," he subconsciously motioned to the spot on his own forehead where Kate Todd had been shot by the terrorist. "I had forgotten, after the coma, until Ziva came by, took my hand and hit herself on the back of the head." He paused. "Now I can't stop thinking about Kate."

"Jethro…" Ducky wasn't exactly sure what to say to that. Kate had been like a daughter to him, had left a hole in everyone's life, but worst of all in Gibbs'. He was one of the very few that realized Gibbs' true feelings for the NCIS agent, how much he'd loved her.

"I don't know what it is. I've had others under my command die before, both in NCIS and in the Marines."

"Caitlin was different," Ducky said to which Gibbs nodded. "Special."

Gibbs nodded again. "At first I thought it was just because of all that with Ari…" The terrorist had been an obsession with Gibbs, but hadn't been properly dealt with until Ziva had killed him not long after Jen became director or before Ziva joined the team.

"But it's not that."

"Well, not just that," Gibbs confirmed, sitting on an empty, clean, examination table.

"Then what?" Ducky asked, knowing the answer already.

"I don't know, Duck. I just…I know I can't sleep." He could only remember two other times he'd felt like this.

Ducky walked to Gibbs and, lightly, more carefully than Gibbs did to his people, popped the back of Gibbs' head. "Hey!"

"You have no clue." Ducky sighed, exasperated with his friend, as he had been many times before. "Would you have married Caitlin?"

"Romance between agents, Ducky. It never works," Gibbs said, thinking of when he and Jen had been partners.

"If she hadn't been an agent. Or if you hadn't. Would you have married Caitlin?"

"No," Gibbs finally said, after considering it for awhile.

"Why not?" Gibbs gave Ducky a look. "Why do you find marriage so distasteful?"

"Because it is, Ducky. It's horrible and I'm never doing it again."

Ducky took in a deep, cleansing breath and slowly released it. "You married the wrong women, Jethro."

"You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Duck."

Ducky shook his head. "Did you love Caitlin?"

Gibbs felt an automatic tug at his heartstrings. "You know I did."

"Then why didn't you marry her, Jethro? Or Jenny, for that matter?"

"We're not talking about Jen," Gibbs said, automatically defensive, although he wasn't sure why. He had picked up on the fact that Ducky never really seemed to let his walls down around their mutual friend like he had when she'd been an agent, never called her anything but director, and never mentioned the past.

"In a way we are, Jethro." He paused. "You got hurt when Shannon and Kelly died. Extremely understandable. You married three times after that, to women who were admittedly beautiful, but cold and not very intelligent, women that you couldn't bring yourself to love. If you couldn't love, you couldn't get hurt. It's why you never asked Jenny or Caitlin to marry you. It's why you never had any other kids."

"Duck..." Jethro started to get up from the table, but Ducky continued.

"Just tell me one thing, Jethro. Did it work? Did not being married mean you grieved any less over Caitlin as you did over Shannon?"

Gibbs was silent for a little while, trying to think of something to say. "No."

"Then what point is it? Wouldn't it be better to be happy? If not married, than at least letting the woman know how you feel about her, give her the chance to say she feels the same about you?"

Gibbs didn't have an answer for that. "So how do you figure Jen ties into any of this? She was the one who left, Ducky. Not me."

Ducky paused. Admittedly, this was hard for him to talk about. Part of him remembered when Jen had left the first time, how lost Jethro had been, but part of him kept seeing her at the hospital or in her office, reviewing the case of Shannon and Kelly's murder, trying to find anything that would put Gibbs' mind at rest. "I remember you two in France."

"A lifetime ago, Ducky," Gibbs said, unknowing that Jen used the same words to describe their relationship.

"What about when she was taken a few months ago?"

Gibbs shrugged. "What about it?"

"If one of your ex-wives had been in the same situation, you would have gone in guns blazing. You thought it through; you made sure she didn't get hurt, even to the point of taping a dead man's hands to a steering wheel. You worried about her when she was missing. You shared your coffee."

"What if I had feelings for her again?" Gibbs asked. "What difference would that make now?"

"She called the secretary of state when they wouldn't let her in to see you. She sat by your side for hours. She even investigated Shannon and Kelly's death again, trying to find some closure for you or at least someone who could help you. When you were gone, she worried herself sick over you."

Gibbs paused, having never heard any of that before. "Point, Duck," he said, his tone softer than he'd meant.

"Tell her, Jethro. I don't want to see you lose another one." True, Jenny had no plans to leave, but Kate and Shannon hadn't either. There was no tomorrow promised; he'd learned that long ago.

"Ducky…" Gibbs started.

"Tell her, Jethro." Gibbs' only reply was a nod as both men walked out silently.

* * *

_What hurts the most is being so close and having so much to say and watching you walk away. And never knowing what could have been and not seeing that loving you is what I was trying to do._

Jenny Shepherd had come up with excuses for the parties she'd been invited to that night, not really in the mood for celebrating. Instead, she'd done what she did many times before when she couldn't sleep, dug out the old photo albums filled with bittersweet memories. She had the radio on for comfort in the background and was toying with the idea of starting a fire in the fireplace. She'd changed out of her work attire, pantyhose and high heels, a dress suit, into a pair of old, soft, faded jeans and one of Jethro's old NCIS sweatshirts she'd never given back to him when they'd broken up. It was so odd. She could have sworn she was over him before she'd moved back to Washington, even thinking about getting married, but when she saw him again, the old tugs at her heartstrings came back. After May, they got even worse. She remembered that like it was yesterday, seeing him in the coma, finding out about Kelly and Shannon, and him walking away. She hadn't taken the time to grieve over him leaving, it was too much trying to help Tony keep the team together, but she'd missed him. There'd been nothing to do but worry and pray and hope she was right, that he would come back. It hadn't dawned on her until he came back the first time, to help Ziva, that she was still in love with him.

She saw the lights in her driveway and, out of habit, reached for her gun. She'd never been safe as an NCIS agent, she knew that, but she had at least felt safer than she did as director.

Gibbs knew Jenny well enough to know that she'd have her gun out, so he called up to the house before actually getting out of the truck, shutting the door behind him. "Jenny!" He called again, looking at the door until it opened and she came out, without her gun.

"Jethro?" When she wrapped her arms around herself, he realized just how cold the Washington winter was. He hurried up the stairs and went inside with her, not noticing until they had gotten in that she was wearing his sweatshirt.

"I brought food." He held up the takeout bags.

"I'll get some drinks," she disappeared into the kitchen.

He started to set out the food on the coffee table when he saw the photo albums out. He sat down on the couch and looked through them, seeing people he hadn't seen in years, but seeing how young they'd all looked back then, even Ducky.

"Are you feeling better?" Jenny asked, returning to the living room, seeing him browsing the albums.

"Hmm?"

"I asked you over this morning; you said you had a headache." She knew he was making an excuse; she couldn't remember Gibbs ever complaining about something hurting before, even after the coma.

"Sorry about that."

She shook her head. "Never apologize…"

"It's a sign of weakness," he finished for her. "Not between friends, Jen." He paused. "I've been having some bad dreams lately, going over the past again." He helped her move the albums so that they could set out the food.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

He paused, took a deep breath, and then started, "Katie. About the day she died."

She nodded. "I'm sorry." He knew how hard it was for him to talk to anyone about Kate and, aside from working the case, had never mentioned her murder.

"Ducky thinks I marry the wrong women for the wrong reason and don't marry the right women…also for the wrong reason." She looked blank. "He thinks that I married because I couldn't fall in love with them. And I didn't marry others because I was already in love with them and didn't want to lose them, like I lost Shannon."

"He may be right," Jenny said, opening her beer and taking a sip.

"Would you have said yes, Jenny?" He finally asked after a long silence. "If I'd asked?"

She shook her head. "No, Jethro." She saw the look on his face. "We were partners, lovers, and best friends. What could a piece of paper prove that we didn't already know? We had just as good a chance as a married couple did at lasting. All it would have done was gotten one of us transferred out."

"You mean that, don't you?" He asked, studying her face, her eyes.

"Yes, Jethro. I do. We didn't need it. It just would have complicated things further."

"I loved you, Jen. I think…I think maybe I never really got over it." It was hard to explain, but his love for Shannon, Kate, or Jen hadn't lessened his love for the others.

"I loved you too, Jethro." She turned to look at the empty fireplace, not saying all of what she wanted to, but admitting that much. "I don't know where things went wrong."

"I don't think it matters. If you hadn't left, I wouldn't have met Kate, you wouldn't be director."

"I have a confession to make." He watched her, his blue eyes connecting with her own bright ones. "When you left, in May, I understood why you had to go, but…being here without you, trying to keep everything and everyone together without you…" It wasn't that she couldn't do it, just that she hadn't wanted to.

"Yeah." He understood what she meant, touched her hand, and they ate the rest of the meal in silence, not odd, uncomfortable silence, but the silence of two people who had loved each other for a lifetime and were completely at ease together.


End file.
